Safe As Houses
by arcanda
Summary: {ON HIATUS} Prompted by the threats of the Wicked Witch, Emma tries to convince Regina to flee from Storybrooke with her and Henry, who, fresh from NYC, still knows nothing of magic & his true past. Long buried conflicts and unresolved tensions boil to the surface. Fluff, angst, darkness, cabin fever…Pie. (SwanQueen, Swan-Mills centric with S/M/Charmings. Long-form 3B AU)
1. Chapter 1 - Shadows

**A/N****: Needed to get this out of my system. Essentially an attempt to tap into a lot of the things I was pretty dissatisfied with after the Onceapocalypse of 2014, eg.: ooc ladies, missed opportunities, plot holes...Prompted by NYCSerenade. Takes place beg S3B in an abstract space between NYCS/Witch Hunt.**

**Originally a tumblr one-shot that turned into a giant ass labor of love. I hope the rest of this story satisfies any seeds the original may have laid. Updates, playlist, &amp; related things will be posted on my tumblr (same . Feedback is always welcome and appreciated :) Thank you to my lovely betas on these chapters! **

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**OCs****:**_** WWotW here is NOT Zelena**, she's entirely of my own design. Robin is written with **my own little fantasy TomEllis!Robin** Locksley in mind, whose story-role/relationship with Regina I envisioned very differently (I affectionately refer to them as RogueQueen). I personally divert utterly &amp; completely from canon-3B-Robin while writing this. But if you're a canon-Robin fan, or either of the canon likenesses work best for you, go with it._

**WARNINGS:**_ Centered on E/R but ALL of their canonic het entanglements are either dealt with, mentioned, or somehow present. Adult themes. anti Wizard Swan. Some potentially triggering drama/references. Discussion &amp; reference to difficult elements in Emma &amp; Regina's backgrounds as well as psychological/triggered/emotional moments that could be triggering. Some rape-culture sub-theme content (due to the show itself). I haven't made any final decisions on how overtly graphic this is going to be yet (with sex, violence, past trauma)-M for language, violence, themes, &amp; later sexual content. _

_Angst with payoff &amp; amenities._

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**'SAFE AS HOUSES'**

_-X-_

**Chapter 1**

Shadows

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"Alright…" Emma arms were crossed. She was still rather somber and removed when she spoke: her leaderly tone reluctant, but decisive, in a way she'd probably cultivated somewhere in Neverland, or maybe long before Storybrooke's name had ever crossed her lips. "We're leaving."

"What?" Regina asked. Her eyes snapped up to the other woman, honestly caught off guard by this. She regarded Emma carefully as she shifted around to brood in the shadows across from her.

They were holed up in a back room of the library to have this conversation under the cloak of the evening light, having deemed it a neutral area between their warded homes, and in the hope it was safe from prying green ears. The two had agreed earlier that it was wise to meet and regroup by themselves, to strategize more efficiently and with extra caution.

The Wicked Witch somehow seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"We have to go," Emma said. The walls around them provided a certain sense of shelter. But it didn't shield them from the urgency of an eerie squall that was wrapping around the town, seeping into the library, and vibrating through the air. They were both still wrapped in their jackets. And behind the bookshelves, counters, and walls—all casting a gray forest of shadows—it was still cold. "We can't stay here."

She could tell Regina was rattled by the confrontation they'd had in the diner. By the way the Witch had seemed to fling Regina's attacks away with casual glee. How the whole thing was so deliberate and calculated, and she'd known exactly where they were—taunting them from the shadows and filling the room with that manic _cackling_, that was still echoing through Emma's head. The way she'd alluded to all the fucked up things she was going to do to them, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. And how she'd done it all without even revealing a face or a name.

Yeah, it was theatrical, but it was effective.

You couldn't fake the kind of poison that had been dripping from the Witch's voice. It made the _'Dark One's_' approach look like a playful kitten next to a rabid, unhinged jaguar. The Witch had taunted ominous implications towards everyone, but she'd specifically singled out Regina and Henry (thank God he hadn't been there), and then Emma. In that order of emphasis.

At least Henry's safety was something they'd always agreed on.

Regina gave Emma an intense and questioning look. "You're serious…?"

There was a hushed shroud that clung to room. It was just enough to form a safe-haven from the bright, cruel light of the moon and the angry sting of the air that was whipping against the shingles of Main Street outside.

Emma paused for a moment and resolved herself with a breath. She glanced around as if someone might be listening before she spoke."One of the smart things I did this past year," she said, "was set up a safe-house." She began to grumble out much of the rest in distraction, "After our...fire, and..the marathon bombing. I didn't want my job...or anything else for that matter, to put Henry in danger."

Regina blanched at the mention of a bombing but didn't have time to process, or question it before Emma spoke again. Her next words were deeply unexpected.

"You're Henry's mother. Whether he remembers you or not." She leveled herself at Regina, still annoyingly removed. "That means I need to protect you." Emma glanced at the ground and back up again before she spoke. "She wants to hurt my family. And that's not gonna happen."

What light did find its way into the room was just enough to make out the features of a person standing nearby amidst the slate-colored walls; to navigate the corners in the dark. And if Regina's expression hadn't betrayed how the words hit her when Emma had started, it did when she'd finished."You…want me to come with you?" she asked, like it was a joke. Her voice grew thick, "He…doesn't even know who I am."

"You're a client. Who needs to get out of here. Because someone dangerous is after you." Emma pinned her gaze and even demeanor on Regina, who stared at her for a moment.

"You're just going to leave?"

"We have to. She wants us."

Regina hesitated, "Your mother…is pregnant."

"Since when do you care?"

" —Let's call it political circumstances."

Emma looked at her for a moment with that same detached stare. "You actually do care..."

Regina's breath tightened a little.

"You really have changed..." Emma continued to stare at her in an unnerving fashion, an air of curiosity behind her scowl; but in the penetrating look there was something else.

Regina returned the stare without faltering. After a moment she said softly, "We can't just leave them here." It wasn't just the idea of leaving a pregnant Snow behind that bothered her. She felt like she was forgetting, missing, something. It was unsettling.

Emma narrowed her eyes a little at the _'we'_. She was still thrown by this turn of affection from the woman who had hated Mary Margaret enough to plot, frame, and kill only a short while ago."She _threatened_ my—" Emma started, and stopped herself with a breath. "She threatened Henry. I have to make _him_ the priority."

Regina arched her eyebrow at this, a silent question that she was willing to take _her _of all people out of harm's way, but not her own mother.

"The Witch is after YOU, and me. Not them," Emma said. "She was expecting us. She wanted me here. _With_ Henry. She made all of that really clear. I'm not gonna give her what she wants." Her brow knitted, and she moved closer to Regina. "You _heard_ the kinds of things she was saying..." her voice tightened, she said she was going to..." Emma trailed off unable to finish the sentence.

"She's _taunting _us."

"Yeah, and she's enjoying it," Emma said. "Like a _cat_ before it _kills_ something and spreads its guts across the floor for fun."

"Are you honestly delusional enough to think that if we fled, she wouldn't go after those you care about? Know how to twist our _wrists_? I thought you'd spent time with criminals."

Emma ignored the jab. "She can't leave, neither can they. Loophole says you can—"

"That's conjecture. You don't _know _that for a fact."

"Okay. We do know _you _can leave, right? You said so, yourself...your original curse built this place. It's still _your_ curse, not hers, otherwise Storybrooke wouldn't be here?"

"…Yes," Regina responded under her breath with reluctance.

"And you _know_ risking trying to take Mary Margaret over the border with us right now would be more dangerous that leaving her here."

Regina took a deep breath and averted her eyes from Emma's.

"As long as we're all here," Emma said, "Henry is a sitting duck in open water. I'm not okay with that." She got a neutral look but not a response. "We stay in touch. Leave long enough to figure out our next move. I'm not gonna sit around here plotting when my son is so vulnerable."

"You seem to be forgetting, that it doesn't matter where we are. The town boundary hasn't exactly proven an issue for her," Regina said. "With her little _minions_...As you've had the joy of experiencing."

Emma gritted her teeth and breezed past this."_You_ seem to be forgetting that _that,_ " she said, pointing behind her in the air, "is _my_ playing field. She _might_ be able to follow but that doesn't mean she'll find us."

"...And if she could manage any magic, it will be nothing compared to what she's capable of here." Regina became somewhat wistful. "Perhaps we can get her to follow us... Lure her out and destroy her while she's vulnerable. Your street methods can't be entirely useless, we could...kill her in her sleep or something…"

"There will be no sleep murdering."

"This woman is trying to—"

"We don't know what she's really trying to do, and we don't know why. Until we do I'm not gonna let you start running around killing people."

Regina scoffed at Emma's conflicting priorities. "I'm sorry, I didn't know I took ORDERS from the prodigal _Princess_."

"Are you going to pretend there wasn't a time that you were just as bad as her?"

"Oh please, dear, I was never that tacky—Besides that, I didn't get my rocks off threatening children with cheap horror antics. And emulating your mother's insufferable faux-righteousness isn't going to protect our son."

"Regina. We're not going to engage with her until we know exactly what's going on and have a solid plan. I want her where someone can keep an eye on her. I want her as far away from us as possible. Do you understand?"

"Oh?..._Us?" _Regina cocked a brow at her.

"She has Gold..." Emma rationalized, flying past her comment.

"She _said_ she has Rumple: we don't know if that's true."

"She got past every single one of the spells you threw at her."

"I couldn't _see_ her!"

"That's exactly my point! She threw you on your ass, Regina! We didn't even see her. And if she's one of your former victims coming after you for revenge, with a personal stake in it, she isn't going to let up."

"Oh, _of course_. This must be all of my fault, because of something I did _decades_ ago."

"Knowing half of the shit you pulled with people, I wouldn't be surprised."

Regina's chin raised into the air, but after a second she gave a slight nod in affirmation, and let this settle into her gut. She rolled her eyes with a long sigh, and clenched her jaw. The idea of spending time with Henry the way Emma was implying was both heart-wrenching and seductive.

"Fine," she relented, taking time to recenter herself. "...Where are we going then?" She had the same tone she'd taken in Neverland acquiescing to Emma's leadership.

Emma's chest deflated, and she looked a little less harried. "I'm not gonna talk about that here. You're just going to have to trust me."

Regina's jaw tightened a little again, as she glared into the other woman's eyes—but then so did her chest. There was _no_ reason for Emma to tell her this, no reason for Emma to take her with them.

If anything, it was more dangerous.

"No..." Regina said, her brow furrowing. "I'm staying here."

"What?"

"Coming with you will only endanger him more."

"Absolutely not."

"_Since when do you care_?" came a snippy reply.

Emma almost came towards her but restrained herself. She continued to stare at Regina, until her eyes softened. "I'm not leaving you here."

"I can take care of myself. You just keep our son safe—"

"Did you _HEAR me_?" Emma's cool exterior snapped and she cut her off. She made a brash move into Regina's personal space that almost caused the woman to jump. She looked a little desperate.

"_I said_, I am _not leaving you _here_._" Her voice cracked apart the spell of dust and hushed shadows in the room. Her breath had risen to the top of her lungs, and she was tensed as if she had been challenged by the other woman. It threw Regina, her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and she opened her mouth to speak but was cut off. "—She'll _kill you_."

Regina was struck by what seemed like the sudden dissolution of the removed, almost apathetic attitude that Emma had been reeking of throughout their exchanges since she arrived back in town.

"I said I can take care of myself..." she said quietly, her voice strangled as if she almost thought she shouldn't continue. Her hand drifted up unconsciously to rub the spot on her face that had been bleeding earlier after the confrontation, long since healed back to perfection with magic.

Emma turned and looked off away from her. "Not alone." Her voice was soft and rushed. "Not like this." She swallowed, and then turned back, preventing Regina from speaking again. Her voice wavered, an unsettled yell caught behind it and seeping through the whisper, "I am _not_ leaving you behind again."

It was there that Regina's heart moved into her throat. She was completely caught off guard by the statement, by Emma's allegiance. But at once some place, folded beneath her gut, welcomed it implicitly. "Wh—"

"After EVERYTHING that has happened, you're really gonna fight me on this?" A pressing distress still crackled through the hush in Emma's voice. "I left you in the mine...I left you to the curse—_for Henry_ because we both knew it was the right thing to do, but I am NOT walking away from you again—How many _times_ do you have to martyr yourself?"

"Emma..."

Emma's voice had gotten more emotional than it should have been.

"What are you gonna do," Emma said, "Stay here and go after her yourself? Let her kill you? We don't even know what she wants!"

"She wants to torture us...She's called Wicked for a reason. She wouldn't just kill me.."

"So _what_—Do you have a _plan_? Are you gonna try to be a _hero?_ Because all it sounds like to me, is you trying to walk away from Henry because its _hard_."

There was silence for a moment, Regina trying inconspicuously to compress the lump in her throat. "Someone has to protect your mother," she confessed. "We don't know what the Witch will do."

"My parents can take care of themselves."

Regina laughed. "Against _magic_? No. Dear, they really can't."

"So that's what it really is then?" Emma swallowed. "You're _asking_ me to leave—To run, with Henry, _without_ you?" She added, her voice smaller, "...Again?"

When Regina spoke, her voice was downcast and muted, "…I was never very good at running. Even when I should have."

Emma looked at her sadly. "But...he needs you."

"That's a nice sentiment, Emma," Regina choked up, "but we both know it's not true. Maybe once upon a time. But not anymore."

"You're wrong. I can't do this alone." Emma seemed to have moved on from anger to bargaining. "I…I may have been okay with him back in New York when we were...living some...cotton-candy lie, but the reality is _different_. We don't—we don't know how long we're going to be gone, if we'll ever really be able to come back…"

This received an uncomprehending look.

"I may be _'The Savior'_, but..." she struggled over her words for a moment, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, "I can't do this without you...I-I can't get him through all this the right way without you."

Regina fixated on her, almost absently trying to figure out why there were tears pooling at the inset of her own eyes.

And what Emma was smoking.

"I won't _lose_ you again," Emma said a little desperately, and not sure what she even meant.

Regina clenched her jaw and, to her horror, the tears started to escape. She wanted to say something but her mind was blank, filled by only the thick breath that was swirling around inside of her. And that lump in her throat. "Emma..."

"Please. Just come with me. This time, just once, don't give up so easily."

"_Give up_? Give up?…I am _trying_ to do the right thing."

"The right thing is staying with your family—it's fighting for it."

"I'm trying to fight for yours! You think this isn't hard for me—"

"NO, no, I think it's _easy_. You know what would be hard? Fighting for _Henry_ even though it hurts more than it ever has, being th—"

"_Your family_ needs—"

"THEY ARE _not_, my _family_!" Emma screamed, her chest heaving. "As much as everyone wants to think it is that easy, it just ISN'T. They are the people that abandoned me. You can't just appear and have that kind of trust, and..just make those things be there, because you _want_ them to—_Everything_ they have done since that curse broke was because they _wanted me_—to be someone I am _not_."

Emma paused long enough to look sincerely upset.

"They didn't even try to find me. After you got back here, they didn't even know Hook left…Whatever they needed me to be before, they don't need it anymore..." For a moment a different person seeped into her eyes, "..they have their own kid now." By the time she finished, her voice was strangled and blistered.

"Emma... You're confu—"

"Do you know who _my family _is?" Emma interrupted her. "...You_._"

Regina was at a complete loss for words now. She just gaped at the other woman, her mouth still hanging open from whatever it was that she'd been about to say.

"_You_ are," Emma whispered, and then swallowed. Her eyes glimmered with an earnest ferocity at the other woman. "I .. I _know_ neither of us asked for this, Regina. I know most of the time we barely manage to get along enough to get anything done, but we are _stuck_ together whether either of us likes it or not. And Henry—that boy you devoted every second of your life to for 11 years? He does need both of us." Emma wavered, her eyes flickering. "And..I need you..." she managed to say. She became a little more methodical then, taking fortification from the revelation. "You have never asked me to be something I'm not. You've never given up on Henry before, or stopped _trying_ to fight for him. Even when you did all of the wrong things. I'm not gonna let you do it now," she finished. Then she added, "And if you think I am going to leave you alone here, even for a _second_, at the whim of that crazy bitch, you are _wrong_."

Regina's eyes pressed into the other woman's, dark and gleaming, over the soft rise and fall of her chest. She stood stock still, stumbling over empty words until she was able to steady her brow again. A chill ran down her shoulders, the shock of being spoken to this way by anyone—who might actually be authentic no less—hit her like icy water. "...If something happens to that child, you will never forgive yourself," Regina said, a smallness somewhere behind her words.

"Then...protect it. Protect it _now_. Put an enchantment on it." A steeliness had returned to Emma. "But I am taking you with me if I have to knock you out and carry you." Regina's face blanched at this. "Understood, _Madame _Mayor?" Emma snipped in her face, as if they had been sparing and this was the end of it. She brushed past Regina in the same sentiment, making her way towards the exit.

Regina stood frozen staring through the wall, her mouth fluttering a little. Emma halted at the door, looking back over her shoulder. "If you do tell _anyone_ about this I _will_ knock you out, and take you out of here. No one can know about w—"

"_Excuse me,_" Regina finally found her voice. "What the _hell_ makes you think you have any right to control what I do?" She surged towards the other woman. "Trust me, Miss Swan, you do not want to find out what happens, when people try to make me do things I _don't_ want to do." A sneer was creeping onto her lip, and her voice was haunted by her former self, but she was still fighting the emotion she'd swallowed from every breath of this exchange.

Emma stuck up her chin, regarding Regina in defiance. She sighed however, with a drawn hiss, letting the unnamed anger that had welled up inside of her seep out in her breath like strangled steam. Her countenance changed as she turned to face Regina fully.

The way she moved forward made Regina think she was actually accepting her challenge, but Emma stopped before she got too close and set her jaw at the other woman instead. "So you really don't want to come?"

Regina didn't say anything.

Maybe it was everything Emma had just said, but somehow, under the tense expression, she thought Emma looked a little sad. A wave of guilt from a sense of abandonment lapped at the back of her spine. But for some horrible reason it was commingled with one just as intense for Snow White.

"I can't make you do anything you don't want to do," Emma said. "But if there's someone here that you want to protect, you need to leave. If she doesn't know where we are, she has no reason to hurt anyone. Not in any way they can't handle themselves."

"Weren't you aware that fresh-born children are hot commodities in our world," Regina sassed her.

Emma stepped in, briefly fixing her with her eyes, the light from the window bathing her face. "I know this is more about you than it is about that. I can read you, Regina. I know when you're lying," she added, pausing to emphasize the reiteration. "The sad part is, I think half the time you might actually believe yourself."

Regina's face dropped a little, but she tried to refrain from showing as much emotion as she could while she looked back at Emma, keeping her gaze even and swallowing the steel in the back of her throat.

"Just think about what I said," Emma said stepping back. "You have till dawn before we're gone."

-X-


	2. Chapter 2 - Cyclone

AN:_ Looks like I'll be shooting to update on Mondays (or at least once a week). Next week might be a little late since I'm relocating, swamped, &amp; still up in the air on betas. I'll do my best to get it out. Something I forgot to note at the beginning since it goes back to S3: it's important to this story to remember that in Regina's mind, consuming the curse at the town line is 'like it was yesterday' and that Emma has just had the memories of her entire time in Storybrooke dumped on her head at once. I'll most likely be posting the playlist sometime in the next two weeks, with the sole intention of ripping your guts out like I keep ripping out my own ;) ::heart:: Enjoy._

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**_x_**

**Chapter 2**

Cyclone

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Regina stared at the wall where Emma had been.

The quiver that had settled inside of her broke into her lip as Emma drew out her retreat. Emma had stopped after she had her back turned to Regina to gather herself. She sighed, squeezed her eyes shut, swallowed hard, and then made her way for the door.

Regina stayed frozen, staring at some distant point into the wall, quickly becoming overcome with a slew of emotions. She saw a flash of blonde hair disappearing behind the door frame out of the corner of her eye.

" —Emma."

Emma pivoted around, and took a couple apprehensive steps past the threshold.

Regina paused for a breath, looking after her with trepidation and soft eyes. "You don't have to knock me out like some kind of cave person." She hushed and said more sincerely, "I'll come with you." She punctuated this with with a small, reticent smile that, despite its size, managed to meet her eyes with an odd kind of hopeful sheen that Emma wasn't familiar with.

A weight of tension visibly dropped off of Emma's shoulders. She wasn't expecting this. Maybe her words got through to Regina more than she'd thought.

"You will?"

Regina nodded. "But I need you to help me first. Protecting the baby."

Emma was actually really touched by the fact she _was_ serious about this rather than simply using it as an excuse or a ploy. "Do you have any idea what to—"

"Yes," Regina said, her words becoming rapid and efficient. "But I need your magic. To make it strong enough that the Witch can't get past it."

Emma nodded and let out another heavy breath, as she continued to look at the other woman. She sucked in air to say…To say something. Nothing came out except for a brief and tiny smile.

"Regina..."

"Just don't. Just..figure out what to tell Henry and be ready to leave. I'll take care of the spell."

Emma could tell by the change in the tone of her voice that Regina was sincere. And it touched her more than she'd expected. That she'd changed her mind. She shifted, as if moving to hug the other woman and stopped herself. She almost thought she saw Regina do the same, but it could have been a flinch.

Emma cleared her throat. "Can we leave before dawn?"

"If everything goes well I can..teleport us to the western town line near the backroads."

"Good." A bit of Emma's former leadership steel returned.

"I'll meet you at Snow's—Mary Margaret's," Regina corrected herself, "as soon as I can. I just need to gather some things. And...and pack a bag. Um…" She sealed her eyes shut for a moment, with a breath. "Two and half hours, at the most?"

Emma nodded. She hedged, stumbling over her words, "Be careful." Regina seemed preoccupied in thought, so Emma collected herself and made to slip out the door—she stopped herself again after turning to leave.

"Regina."

"Yes, Emma?"

There was a pause as Emma breathed in the doorframe. She turned around to face Regina, steadying the air in her lungs, and looked at the other woman. Emma's countenance was a mixture of genuine warmth and softness that Regina did not feel should have been directed at her. So much so that she instinctively almost looked behind her to see if Henry was there. But that didn't last, because they seemed to exchange something non-verbally when their eyes connected.

Regina pored over her for a moment, getting unnerved: There was _just something_ _about Emma_…That always made her ribs chatter. And reduced her formative descriptive words to either '_idiot_', or a very specific kind of growl echoing through her skull.

Emma crossed to her rather suddenly.

She stopped and stood in front of Regina, and her eyes flicked past the startled little look on her face, studying her.

"Hey…" she said.

It was wrong. The way Emma was ignoring social protocol and looking at her like that, a determined little scowl of sincerity in her eyes.

"…What are you doing?" Regina asked, a little choked.

"I just…" Her eyes darted. "I…I just…" She swallowed and leaned her gaze closer into Regina's, looking into her intensely.

An ember plunked into Regina's solar plexus, accompanied by abject fear.

Emma's eyes stopped flicking across Regina's face. Her voice became faint and still. "I know how hard you try sometimes. But you can't hide everything. Not even in the dark...Not from me."

"_What_ are you doing?" Regina asked more anxiously, her pulse hammering through her chest. Emma's eyes were too close to her, and too persistent. But she couldn't bring herself to tear her own away.

Emma wavered. She tentatively reached out and wrapped her arms around Regina, pulled her chin over Regina's shoulder, and tugging her close.

Regina had almost been expecting it to hurt. But that's not what it felt like at all…It was like a smothering weight was being lifted off of her; one that had been suffocating her, that she'd been carrying so long she'd forgotten it was there. It felt so good and overdue somehow. So surprisingly natural, which was probably what threw her the most at first. She decompressed into Emma. Her breath trilled out over the other woman's ear before her, and into the soft blonde tresses against it. She couldn't help slipping her fingers into them, and pulled Emma against her, inhaling her scent. For the first time, which seemed wrong, given everything they'd been through.

"It's gonna be okay," she heard Emma mumble. But Regina was almost distracted away from the words by their vibration against her. Emma wrapped her arm closer, all the way around Regina's back, and grasped onto her far shoulder, pressing her head further into the embrace. "…With Henry, with everything. We're gonna...fix it, we just need to stick together." Emma was practically breathing her words, and Regina was floating further and further away from them, from a place where her feet touched the ground.

"It's gonna be okay." Emma repeated, whispering. It wasn't until Emma tightened her grip on the back of her shoulder and instinctively pressed her lips into her neck—that Regina realized there were tears streaming down her own face.

She was oblivious to how long they had been there; to at what point she'd started crying. But she was too distracted right now to care—by Emma's actions, by Emma's proximity. And by the unrelenting pins and needles of a smolder that had risen up under her skin the second she felt Emma's lips on her neck.

"I promise," Emma mumbled distantly into her neck, her breath against her skin, and her forehead coming to rest on the other woman's cheek bone. Her hand shifted and moved up to the back of Regina's neck. Something churned and sprang open between them at the contact. Emma's hand trembled. A warmth washed between the two of them, settling into the back of their lungs.

Before either of them could think, Emma's hand was trickling down the side of Regina's cheek against the tracks that her tears had made. Her fingertips were tentatively pressing back up against the crook at the underside of her jaw on their own accord with a persistent and soothing knead. It caused Regina to shiver. She tried to stifle the pulsing, vicious tremble that was racking up the back of her leg—despite her desires—that threatened to spill into the jawbone under Emma's hand. But, then Emma's lips were brushing against Regina's chin, dragging across her skin from where they had been tucked against her, and stealing away a patch of wetness. It was a half kiss. Something that may or may not have been intended as one. And Regina's breath erupted.

Regina closed her eyes, frozen in the sensation of the foreign touch for just an instant, her breath overtaking her, and her body compelled by its own devices. Her eyes darkened and dropped towards the other woman's, where they still lay hidden against her. Emma began to drag her nose across her cheek; her hot, unsteady breath curling out against it. She seemed like she was in a trance and just starting to notice the rest of Regina that was in front of her, every part of her that was touching Regina unsteady, but focused.

Emma stared at Regina's lips as she emerged in front of her...closer.

The echo of that '_Emma-Swan-growl'_ ripped through the back of Regina's mind. And on an impulse, she came apart. She grabbed the back of her jaw, and pulled Emma's lips to her own, not bothering to think of the consequences.

To Regina's surprise, rather than pulling away—Emma clung to her. She pressed towards her and kissed her back. Something liquid and lightning poured through Regina that was more powerful than any sense of rationality or will power. There was a desperation between them.

Their lips molded together harder.A guttural, distant whine slipped out from someone at the release, between soft wet skin. And then all of the breath in the room came to a halt— It was like a car crash. For a moment there was stillness, and utter pressing silence. And then everything was colliding together. The pressure between their lips folded when Emma gained the traction to suck on her lower lip with the same amount of force, and then consumed Regina's lips with her own; a gesture Regina returned with a vengeance.

Emma's lips circled around hers. Her tongue was slid into her mouth, and Regina's body took her over completely. She grabbed onto the other woman, and was hurtling into her in a space where gravity had been sucked from the room. And before either of them could grasp it: there was pressing and grasping and hands, stumbling and need. And Regina's palm, still pressed against the curve of Emma's jaw and descended across it, was the only thing keeping her centered enough to stay on her feet.

Her fingers searched for some kind of desperate hold. Emma's mouth was all over her, in her; she couldn't breathe. _Emma._ Emma was on her. Emma was _in_ her. Soft, warm, wet, strong Emma. _GOD, Emma was a good kisser_— Regina didn't know what was happening. Her entire body was on fire. Emma's mouth undulated against hers. Her tongue probed into its entrance, and began to connect with her own. She gasped into it. The feeling sent sharp chills through her, it shook the muscles of her body against their own fibre. She felt like a balloon that had been cut loose into a hurricane.

Emma stumbled back a couple of steps, still hanging onto Regina, and almost knocked over a book cart. Regina barely registered the intrusion when they collided into a shelf behind it, knocking books into the air. It seemed like an eternity, though it had only been a couple of seconds, before they jared hard against a wall and Emma's back found the stable thing they needed.

Regina hung onto Emma, practically climbing her to some unreachable place, wanting, willing, to press their bodies closer together but frozen in sensory overload.

"_Regina..._" Emma finally gasped, and her hands clawed up Regina's neck, clutching at her clothing and grasping through her hair with an electric charge: Emma seemed inundated by it, almost shaking. All Regina could do was try to swallow it. She was kissing Emma harder and more passionately than she'd ever even thought about kissing someone before in her life, capturing her lips with an intensity she'd once used to punch the other woman in the face. _Emma._

Regina didn't realize that the desperate moan filling the air came from her.

She didn't realize her vision was blurry for the tears stinging her eyes.

She ravaged Emma's mouth, and hovered over the gasps that bound them together, like an angry serpent constricting in upon itself, as Emma started to bow over against the wall under her touch, whimpering in her throat until it turned to shudders. She didn't notice the tears starting to escape from the blonde in sync with the shudders reaching up through her body.

The way Emma was kissing her back made her sure she would fall over.

The room seemed like it was whirling around.

Somewhere beyond the walls, a shriek of wind hammered against the clock tower above them and rattled the building. Before Emma could pull their bodies flush where she'd tangled her grasp in Regina's clothes, they were on their knees.

Regina grasped the side of Emma's head on the cusp of a breath, both hands tangling in the honeyed locks: she propped it flush against the wall, and leveraged her tongue inside of her. Emma whimpered, shuddering at the act. One of Regina's hands descended, angling Emma's jaw, and began to scrape her nails down across Emma's neck: she was nibbling Emma's lower lip like there was something there she needed, her thumb pressing across the woman's jugular.

Emma's eyes were seared shut, and she was trembling. "Regina," she gasped.

Regina answered her by wrapping her mouth around Emma's again, with a desperate kind of ferocity, bellied in the gesture itself rather than its execution, and she pressed Emma's head firmly into the back of the wall with her kiss. "—_Shutup,_" Regina growled with a heavy throat, her voice cracked and carnal, and her throat heavy and struggling for air. "_Just shut up.._" And she kissed her again. She was crying. Why was she crying?

A short, high pitched gasp, emitted from Emma, her the breath escaping from her lungs in sharp little exhales, and with every breath she struggled to take in, Regina undulated into her kisses. "What's happening..." Emma pleaded, her words breaking through her breathe.

"...Shut up," Regina sobbed, and tried to kiss her again. But it was turning into something more poignant, and she didn't have the strength, or skill, or understanding, or _anything,_ to stop it.

Regina sucked on Emma's tongue, pulling it into her mouth. She pressed her lower body into Emma's—and because Emma had been about to say something, a wanton, feminine gasp escaped her. Her hands slid up under Regina's jacket. She clawed at her lower back, and started trailing slow, hard pressed circles where the shirt had bunched up and her hands came in contact with skin.

It caused Regina to tremble, and begin to lose her strength, as she clung to the other woman, searching for breath in a place she couldn't reach. Her palms traipsed across the wetness of tears on Emma's cheeks, and it jostled her.

"...Regina." Emma said, imploring, almost begging.

Emma tried not to press her hips up into the woman because she knew she may not stop until the world disappeared and exploded a hundred times. And instead of saying anything, instead of submitting to the wet emotion threatening to spill out into the night—they kissed.

But something else was being said, a sweetness, a softness was starting to seep in that was saturating every high part of Emma's brain, and she couldn't help the sob that escaped into the other woman's mouth. Regina seemed to swallow it in response. Egging her on. She kissed the woman with a soft sincerity—something Emma could have only dreamed existed inside of the fierce woman. It was like Regina had been broken open. It was like she couldn't stop it if she tried, and holding onto Emma was the only thing keeping her together.

Emma then impulsively did something she later wouldn't quite understand. But at the time, she didn't really need to.

Something clenched in the pit of her stomach, her eyes went a little wide. She took Regina's head in both her hands and peered unapologetically into her eyes, a pale look of shock still lacing her own.

"Regina...?" she whispered, swallowing a nervous title-wave that lapped up her spine and made her shake. "... I .. I love you…" Regina _froze_—wide eyed. Emma reacted to her own words, in part like she wasn't the one saying it; was hearing it from someone else, but she still refused to falter in holding Regina's gaze. They both struggled to catch their breath.

Regina slowly began to shake her head, as her eyes teared up.

" - No." Regina's voice rattled, cracking, and her head shook slowly in wider and wider arcs, sobs building in her throat.

Emma furrowed her brow at this, and nodded. She tried to get Regina to keep looking at her, her eyes wide but her heart filling up as she stared at the other woman—the meaning behind the response that was itching at her tongue began to to hit her and reaffirm the truth of the sentiment for herself. "Yes," she breathed, nodding against her own emotions again.

But Regina couldn't look at her and was shaking her head in a panicky way. "No," she whispered, "No, no no..." her voice cracked and tears spilled out of her eyes, as she bowed towards Emma's body, away from her gaze, "...you _can't_," she said in a broken wavering sob. "_No_," she said more fiercely, with a lace of anger.

Despite Regina's words she was curling into the other woman, grasping onto her and shaking.

"Yes...Regina…" Emma tried to get her head up again, "I… I _love you..._" she said again in a sharp whisper, her own breath quaking, but the sentiment firm. She was still in awe of the words that were leaving her own mouth. Regina paused as Emma said this and, despite trying to keep it in, she broke freely into tears and buried herself in Emma's shoulder, clinging to her. "Hey...It's okay," Emma started to tear up herself, "Okay?...You can hate me, I…"

"No." Regina said again, and an unsteady hand came up against Emma's neck as she buried herself tighter into her shoulder, shaking.

_'...Oh God.' _Emma thought— '_I just fucked everything up. I just fucked everything up really bad, didn't I?' _—It started to run like a mantra in her head, but she didn't say it out loud for fear doing so would make it worse. And that it might actually be true.

Regina clung to Emma like that for a long time. Until the shuddering in her body tightened and her sobs died off. Emma held onto her as tight as she dared, not knowing what to do, but wanting to do so much more. She felt like she'd melted, and was now flooded in her own hot wax. A moment of peace passed between them. Her hand clasped across Regina's back, and she felt Regina's breath steady. Regina's head turned in—And a drawn out, feathery kiss pressed against her neck. The simple act was so soft it was maddening. It was incredibly electric in that moment, and Emma couldn't help but breathe into it for as long as it lasted...But then, ever so slowly, there was another one.

Regina shifted a couple inches down on Emma's neck and there was another, and another. Regina's face pressed all the way into the crook of her neck, and the pressure and intensity of the gesture increased so noticeably it ran a shiver up Emma's spine and set her skin across her shoulders on fire.

"R'hgina?" she breathed, strangled by the lips attaching just above her collarbone. "What are you...you don't have...to—" she was cut off almost instantly by the same soft lips connecting with her own, "_mn_h...?"

"Shhh." Regina gestured a finger towards her lips without touching them. Then kissed her again, more surely this time, a little gusty noise emanating from the top of her throat. A piece of Regina that Emma had never seen before was there, an air to her that was somehow light and free but gravely and grounded at the same time. It was almost young, or even coquettish.

Regina pulled her chest in close to Emma and looked down at her through lidded eyes, her lips a breath away.

Emma was dumbstruck, her lips parted in awe as the woman shyly trailed a light finger across the length of her jaw, sending tingles through her skin, and then back and forth again in a tight pattern, looking down at it as she did.

"Did you mean it?" Regina breathed in a rushed staccato whisper against her ear, before returning her gaze to the trailing finger.

Emma's heart was thudding into her throat, through her skull. It was difficult to hear. Regina's fingers were cold and she had a compulsion to warm them. She reached out and smoothed her hand out over the side of Regina's face, reverence in her touch, half baffled by the fact she was actually touching her. Like there shouldn't really be a solid person there. She leveled the woman's face towards her, her touch soft but firm, until Regina's gaze popped up past her lashes into Emma's eyes. Emma got stuck for a second on her words. She had never really looked at Regina's eyes like this before. And even in the muted light, she fell into them.

"Emma...?" Regina asked apprehensively.

"What?" she said absently.

That shy woman in front of her, actually grabbed her jaw aggressively and jerked it a little, leaning in with her gaze. "_Did you mean it_?" But there was a light gleam in her eye, in her tone, that Emma hadn't seen before. And along with the move, Regina pivoted herself in flirtation on Emma's lap—it was certainly pointed enough not to go unnoticed.

"Fffu..uhnhh—yes..._Yes_," Emma gasped. She sured up a little with a thick swallow, recovering herself. "I meant it," she said, looking Regina in the eye, offering a quick glance as she stretched her fingers out to smooth away a dark lock, jerking them away before she did.

Regina made some soft vowel noise in the the back of her throat as she glanced over the blonde's features—the expression on her face now one of a hunting animal. She smiled. It was a smile much more like the woman Emma had come to know. And because of that, it drove her slightly mad.

"_Good,_" Regina drawled. It was breathy, though sincere. Not something that could have been mistaken for the pure divisiveness, or simple coy attitude of 'the Evil Queen'. That was what the throaty little half chuckle she punctuated it with was for.

She bent in and kissed Emma again.

After a long, indulgent moment passed that left them both grounded but dazed, Regina's lips came to a parted rest on top of Emma's, swollen and tingling.

"What are we going to..do?" she breathed. It was a loaded question that came off more as a statement. Her brow furrowed. Reality hung back in the air. And she was visibly swallowing down a wave of latent emotion.

"Hey..." Emma breathed. She grasped a shaky hand around Regina's flushed and tear-stained jaw, and pressed a thumb lightly under her chin to try get Regina to look at her again.

"I'll come with you, Emma," Regina breathed against her cheek.

Emma had to close her eyes at the contact. An unspoken sigh undulated down her shoulders, as she clutched Regina a little closer in relief. "..Thank you," Emma whispered back against her.

It felt like they were clinging on to one another as life-rafts; in some kind of explosive blur inside a liminal spell. Emma knew if they let go, the shock of that very contact would quickly disappear like a receding fog. But she forced herself to do it. Because she had a nagging sense that if she didn't, they wouldn't make it out of Storybrooke. She knew somewhere in her gut that if she didn't, they may not make it out of this _room_ for a very long time.

"Go...get packed," she whispered.

She smoothed her hand reverently across the side of Regina's face in an attempt to steady both of them, and to wash away the nudity and trauma in the air. "I'll figure out what to tell Henry. Go get ready."

-X-


	3. Chapter 3 - Lies

**_AN: __Heartfelt thank you to everyone reading and taking an interest in this story, for all of your kind and thoughtful feedback/support. I'm thrilled by the response so far. All of your follows and words mean a lot and are invigorating. Writing this particular story has become somewhat of a burden of love, and i hope that all becomes distilled, at least a little, in the end result-and that you all enjoy the direction I'm taking this in._**

_**Apologies for the giant lag in this update. There were a lot more obstacles (both life and writing) than I anticipated in getting this posted, and I had to go on a little hiatus. I ended up splitting this chapter in half, and have decided to start publishing un-beta'ed (for now) in the interest of time/energy and staying more regular (slow non-linear editor already, here, but I'm getting faster). Fingers crossed the quality difference isn't too horrible, but please let me know if there's something glaring that isn't working for you.**_

_**This chapter is much more low key. Hope you enjoy.**_

* * *

**_x_**

**Chapter 3**

Lies

.

_'Did I just fuck everything up?'_

Emma took a loaded breath and smoothed her hands over her jacket, feeling rather naked despite how bundled up she was. She leaned against the wall by the backdoor to the library.

_'Did I just really fuck everything up?' _she thought.

She was still breathing through in her upper chest. The part of her dutifully surveying the world outside was working on autopilot. The moon was bright, illuminating a light dusting of snow that clung to the world; overpowering the freezing gray slush that was wedged in corners and under wheels. It was the nighttime equivalent of a sunny day. It cast its own kind of spell telling living things sleep was optional. And it set Emma on edge. It wasn't what they needed right now.

Emma darted out from the cover of the library building and onto the sidewalk. She was doing her best to concentrate on _not_ getting attacked by guerrilla monkeys and subsequently tortured to death in the block and a half back to the Inn, but the phrase was like a mantra running through her head.

'_Did I just seriously fuck everything up?'_

A navy glow pressed down around Emma as she scurried across the street. It was frigid, and the streets were barren except for the sprinkling of crystals that whipped in the air every now and then, wailing against the clock tower behind her; which was now perpetually stalled at 1:08. She shoved her hands in her pockets, and hunched the collar of her jacket over her neck, her gaze shifty.

Regina was convinced it was safer for Emma to travel by foot in case the Witch could sense magic, or now had a similar hold on Storybrooke as Pan had on Neverland**.** She didn't seem to be worried about the Witch knowing where _she_ was.

In that big empty house.

Across town.

Alone.

It set a vicious knot in Emma's stomach. But she tried to belittle her feelings. She didn't have much of a track record with getting attached to people. At least Regina could 'poof' back to her mansion, she couldn't exactly picture her sleeping over at Mary Margaret's right now.

Emma kept to the shadows as much as she could, trying to shake off what just had happened and keep her wits about her in the process. She wanted to chastise herself for it all and tear it apart. But every time she started to, her mind was flooded with the memory of the way Regina had clasped her hand and looked at her before she sent her over the town line; that broken vulnerable look when she'd seen Henry again for the first time, despite not even remembering the year without him.

The expanse of the garage parking lot ahead of Emma was the most nerve-wracking part of her short journey, wide open with nowhere to hide. Her mind was still reeling, her hands trembling—despite her attempt to still them—not only from the cold. She ignored the frigid slush that was starting to seep up the back of her legs and continued to stomp through it with disregard.

The Witch had pretty well demonstrated she was the one pulling the strings the day after their unsuccessful stakeout, when she'd blitzed them at precisely the moment they were most off guard. The performance was down to such an erie precision that Emma now felt like she constantly had eyes on her.

Regina had pulled a couple other contingencies out of her vault earlier in a hurry to ward against powerful magic, quartering off some 'safe' spaces like Granny's, and it made Emma feel a little less unnerved. But they had no way of knowing if they were actually going to be effective. Until they weren't. The other woman was entirely convinced the Witch had broken past her blood magic seal in front of them deliberately, to plant this seed of fear.

One step ahead. Hopefully it was only one, but Emma doubted it. And even if they _were_ totally safe in their homes now, how long could they really hold out?

The three of them needed to stick together. Emma had known that as soon as the attack was over. And keeping Henry here right now, away from Regina, was a bad idea all around.

But really, what was she supposed to do? Tell him they were moving into Regina's house for the rest of their visit? Have the Mayor chaperone them overnight at the Inn?

* * *

When Emma finally reached safe harbor, she shut the back door to the Inn behind her and leaned on it, letting a weight of tension roll off her chest. Instead of moving to creep up the stairs, she allowed herself the small luxury of a moment to collect everything that was hammering away inside of her.

She unstuffed her trembly hands from her pockets and wrung them out, smoothing them against her pants. The more she allowed herself to dwell on the idea of what she'd just done and said, the more it rattled and began to mortify her.

Regina really hadn't given her much to go on. She wasn't sure at all what she'd thought Emma had meant when she'd said what she said. Like family? Like she was _in love_ with her? _She _had no idea what she'd meant.

The idea of the latter made her burn so fiercely and instantly with fear and distress that she had to push it out of her mind. She opted to separate the kissing from the words, because she could barely process one of the two. They had more important things to deal with right now.

It wasn't helping that the weight of everything that'd happened before she and Henry had gone to Manhattan was bombarding her and beginning to poke its ugly head up at random intervals.

The 'real-her' may have been used to chronic emergency, but after the little window of a life she'd just been living—after having that chaos drained from her system like a noxious toxin—the idea of fully embracing and taking point on it almost hurt.

She had a gnawing feeling about leaving Regina to run off alone right now; that anything could happen. She didn't like it. Not now. Not after this. Not after releasing this electric thing between them that had been buzzing at the back of her ear through Neverland; a spring that had been pressed down inside of her since she said goodbye to Regina in that mine, a moment that now seemed like more than half a life away. How had things changed so dramatically and definitively between them in such short a span of time?

It was like a wall had been blown apart between them.

She felt somehow bound to this woman in a way that before, had only been a glimmer and a promise laying hidden in that thick, phantom space between them and everything that came with it.

It was almost more overwhelming and jarring than the memories that had hit her on that Uptown sidewalk less that 48 hours ago.

The nerves that were pressing deep in Emma's gut pushed against all of her logic: they longed to have left Hook in jail, to be cleaning up empty thai food cartons right now instead of a tearful, secret rendezvous and powerful threats to their lives. But more than that Emma wanted the gnawing feeling deep inside of her to end: the one that hadn't abated since her memories had crashed back into her head like a broken dam.

The desire gripped her that this would all be so much easier if Henry had really been Henry again, if she was going through it _with _him. The sentiment Henry wasn't actually himself right now gave Emma pause, and stuck her with guilt and concern.

Because she still wanted to take him back.

But she quickly swept all of the thoughts out of her head with evidence that he was in fact still himself.

If Regina was right, the Witch knew exactly what she was doing and was using the monkeys to cause chaos and distract them; she was playing them, wanted them right where they were. But she had no idea why the witch specifically wanted them. Emma wasn't sure whether she preferred the deep burdened look that now haunted Regina's eyes so often to the cruel ice that had been there once before.

_—"I've seen it before. This kind of narcism…"—_

She hadn't asked Regina where she'd seen it. She didn't really think she wanted to know. There had been a distant worry in Regina's brow when she'd said it. Despite her convictions however, she'd continued to insist that the Witch wasn't a former friend of hers.

_—"It's about the power."__—_

_—"If this is because of something I've done, and she comes after Henry…"—_

_'Nothing is going to happen to Henry,' _Emma reaffirmed herself, as she wiped the wetness off her nose and pushed her way up towards the stairs.

She wouldn't _let _it.

* * *

Emma kept her wrist to her mouth as she brushed through Granny's, until she breezed by a mirror in the hallway, where she wiped off the remaining traces of lipstick smeared on her chin. She tried to ignore the way her hand trembled when she did.

She stopped in front of the door to Henry's room, and paused before she pressed through it with a light knock. "Henry?" she called out in a hushed tone.

There was some shuffling on the bed where Henry was laying in the dark with only the light from the the window and his gaming device. "Sorry, mom!" he blurted, in a rushed whisper that was strained with the stress of being caught. "I was just stuck on this level and I needed to finish it and I'm going to bed right now—I swear—I already brushed my teeth and everything…"

The life Emma was expected to be living by him right now hit her in the face like a wall of hot air.

"It's um, it's okay." She flicked on a small lamp and shut his door quietly behind her. "I'm actually glad you're still up. Look…" She sat down carefully on the edge of the bed with a big breath.

"Why are you…acting so serious?" His attention was now fully on her, game forgotten. "Did something bad happen?"

Emma hesitated and swallowed the words stuck in the back of her throat before she spoke. "No," she said slowly. "Not really. But, something did happened. It's not safe here."

She watched the way he paused, the co-conspiring anxiety that slipped over him. An apprehensive stutter had begun to appear in his voice. "What?" Still though, even while glamoured, Henry was all discerning; ready to be an accomplice in a way beyond his years.

"It's okay, everything's gonna be fine, we just need to leave. And I need you to do what I ask you to."

"What's going on?"

"I'll explain things after we're out of here. Okay, kid?"

"Is someone trying to hurt us?"

"I…" Emma sighed. A distant promise about never lying to him rang between her ears. "I think so. But it's going to be okay, we're leaving."

Henry studied her with wide serious eyes for a moment. "What if they follow us?"

"I won't let that happen." As proud as she was of Henry, sometimes his perceptivity was annoying. "You know I'm good," she added softly.

Because he did: 'New York City-bounty–Emma' _was_ actually real. She didn't need some trumped up super-hero persona with him. She _was_ good at her job, and he knew it. Otherwise she never would have kept on pursuing it while deciding to raise a child alone. That made logical sense in her head, but she was starting to get whiplash.

"Are we going back to New York?"

Emma raised a finger to her lips signaling him not to ask. "I just need you to pack quick and stay really quiet about it, okay? We're gonna slip out so no one sees."

"Okay." Henry was still apprehensive, but he saluted her, signaling he was down to copilot an operation. Emma's heart clenched a little.

"Regina, the...mayor, she's coming with us."

"What? Why?"

Emma cleared her throat. "She's um…she's in danger here too right now. Okay?"

Henry gave her a puzzled look, adamant questions threatening to claw their way out of his mouth. But he resolved to keep his lips clamped shut.

For now.

He was old enough to be aware of what Emma's demeanor meant. She'd given him talks about things like this. And he trusted her enough to try not to get in the way by prying at her requests until they were safe.

* * *

Emma rapped a little pre-conceived knock on the door to Mary Margaret's loft. She had to do it three or four times before there was any sign of life on the other side. As she pressed her forehead against it wearily, she heard some shuffling. "It's Emma," she tried to yell through the crack as clearly as she could without being too loud.

David eventually opened the door. He was haphazardly dressed and still tensed, ready to unsheathe the sword he was clutching.

"Emma? What are you doing here?"

He stepped back, quickly letting her into the home, and closed the door behind her. That old familiar smell that was Mary Margaret's loft—a mingling of cinnamon, something floral, and like a Brooklyn thrift-shop—hit Emma's nose. It evoked old half-consumed sentiments, and longings now so much simpler in their nostalgia.

"It's almost two o'clock in the morning," David said, his voice a fretful whisper. "Your mother's sleepi—"

"I know. I'm sorry. This couldn't wait."

"What's going on?" David crossed to double-check the locks on the front door before his shoulders fell and he released his grip on the sword. "We didn't hear from you." He directed his full attention at Emma. His gaze was questioning and worried.

Emma took a fortifying breath. "I didn't want to leave a phone trail."She glanced around, very aware of the fact she was now alone with David and Mary Margaret, who would be asking questions, and that it might stay that way for a decent while before Regina showed up. "I…um, look—"

"Emma?"

Mary Margaret's weary voice trickled in from the hall, her body slowly trailing after it. "What's going, on is everything okay?" She shuffled into the room and leaned on the doorjamb, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, one hand on her swollen belly.

"Hey…sorry I woke you up, I…" She sucked in a stressed breath and peered out the window curtain. "-No. It's not okay. A homicidal psychopath wants to use us as potion ingredients, and Henry doesn't even know magic exists..."

After her anxious words tapered off, the two of them stared on at her in expectation. Emma looked at the clock on the side table: 1:48. It had been around 11:00 when she'd left Regina. She'd actually stalled in the hope Regina would be here, already at work, by the time she arrived.

Emma turned slowly back to them. "Look, I—" Why were they looking at her like doe-eyed cocker spaniels she was about to disappoint?

"What do you need us to do?" David asked. "Do you need to stay here? Where's Henry?"

"Regina should be here any minute. Henry's still at the Inn, he should be safe for now but I don't want to leave him alone any longer than I have to."

There was a long pause.

"He's…packing." She cringed internally. She didn't want to look at them.

"You…mean to come here?" David asked. "What do you m—"

"What?" Mary Margaret said over him as if she hadn't even heard him talking, her gaze suddenly firm as stone as she pinned Emma with wide little eyes. Her tone made it evident she was catching on quicker than David.

Emma squared her shoulders. "To…to go," she whispered. The truth was catching in her throat like bad lie. "Regina and I had a conversation and…this is the safest option. The Witch shouldn't be able to get past the town border, or use magic out there. She wants _us,_ not you."

She waited but neither of them said anything. They were both still staring at her.

Mary Margaret shuffled over and sat down on an ottoman. Her mouth was dangled, in part from the delirium at having been woken up, and in part from her daughter. She scowled into the floor and tried to wrap her head around what Emma was saying.

David sat down next to her and rubbed his temple with a sigh. Then his brow furrowed quizzically and he looked up at Emma. "What were you doing talking to Regina in the middle of the night?"

Emma's eyes rounded on him, fear rising in the back of her throat. "I was…_scared,_ okay?" she blurted out. "I asked her to meet me earlier. We had to take care of some things. She's getting supplies to put some protection enchantments on your…on the baby." She looked out the curtain again compulsively. "She should be here," she said, checking the clock on her phone. She knew she was being extra defensive and twitchy but she couldn't help it.

Emma hadn't slept well at all since she'd gotten here. She was building up a substantial sleep-deficit, and could feel the distinct beginnings of a bad headache working into the base of her skull in the deep root of her neck.

"Wait, Emma," Mary Margaret asked, pressing through her own fog, "where are you going?"

"No one knows that except for me, and it's gonna stay that way." Emma kicked into logistics mode, hoping to silence the slew of questions that were about to bubble up in the room.

"What if she was lying?" David asked. "What if she's going after other people too? I want you to be safe to, but you two are the only people with magic that we have…" There was the same yielding, soft uncertainty in his eyes that he so often looked at Mary Margaret with when he disagreed.

"Not the _only _ones. We're gonna stay in touch, okay? Henry is my priority right now. He has to be." Emma shuffled. Her eyes darted away from them and she tossed her hands fruitlessly in the air. "And I'm not leaving Regina alone here to get eviscerated in her sleep or killed doing something reckless. Anxiety clutched onto her solar plexus. She muttered, "You know how she is…she's still Henry's mom. And I owe her." She wasn't just deliberately avoiding eye contact with them now, she wasn't sure she would have been able to hold it if she wanted to.

"Emma, we do want you to be safe too," Mary Margaret said, "but…wasn't the whole point of coming back because we need your magic to stop her?"

Emma fisted her hands in her hair impatiently. "Maybe? I don't know—maybe she wanted me here. We'll figure it out when Henry is back on the other side of that town line." A fire of stifled, bitting emotion welled up in her throat at them, but she swallowed it down, kept herself from flaming them with it.

"Isn't there somewhere Henry can stay outside of Storybrooke?" David asked. "Where you could drop him…A friend's—"

"Not while Walsh might still be out there and I have no idea what she can do with…the," Emma faltered, "monkeys, or what she's capable of herself—And she _wanted _us here. No offense, but you guys don't remember anything and you probably know less than I do right about what's going on."

"Maybe she's _trying _to scare you off, Emma," David said, "maybe she's afraid of you—"

"She's not. Her voice…that wasn't fear. That was victory." Emma's own words gave her the chills. "And she hasn't even done anything yet. If she didn't have powerful magic none of you would be here. She was _spying_ on me in New York. Walsh had enough magic to shift there and poof away, it had to be her."

Her parents exchanged a look. Mary Margaret sighed and put her head in her hand. "Okay…Alright. Just…just, tell us the plan."

"You said Regina was getting some kind of spell?" David asked.

"Yeah." Emma's eyes darted nervously around the room again. "And she should be here by now." She looked at the clock, then glanced at her phone even though they'd agreed not to use them anymore. "She should…"

"Emma…?" Mary Margaret said.

She turned back to Mary Margaret and David.

"I…Are—" Mary Margaret tried, bottling up what she really wanted to say. "How far are you going?"

"Far enough." Emma pummeled the guilt out of her throat back down inside of her where it came from. "You guys can't cross the border. Right?"

She knew deep down in an ideal and responsible world she should be trying harder to do this differently—that she should want to. That she should be worried about taking Mary Margaret and not Regina. This wasn't an ideal and responsible world.

David sighed. "No. You're right…We need to stay with the town. We'll keep an eye on her, try to figure this out." He didn't really seem as agreeably as his words. "Get yourself somewhere safe and we'll go from there."

Mary Margaret was fidgeting and kept looking at her; like she wanted to say something big. Emma was trying to keep that from happening. It seemed like she was sensing Emma's intentions quicker than David.

"How long are you planning on being away?" Mary Margaret finally asked in a hush.

"As long as it takes."

"You…you might miss the baby…"

"You'll be fine." Emma was trying very hard to suppress the emotion nagging at the base of her throat. "I'm sure the baby will be too."

She didn't like the way Mary Margaret was eyeing her.

Like she knew. Like she was still the old Mary Margaret, and she knew what Emma, in her gut, was really trying to do.

"Where the hell is Regina…"

"Emma…" Mary Margaret spoke again, still like there was a flood of words she was carefully reserving in her throat. She stared at her daughter carefully. Her hand fidgeted at her mouth, and then pulled away. "Are you going to tell Henry?"

Emma didn't have to answer.

Their conversation was finally cut off by a cloud of purple smoke.

-X-


End file.
